


Fear and all His Friends

by lauren3210



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Auror Draco Malfoy, Auror Harry Potter, Auror Partners, Community: hd_erised, HP: EWE, M/M, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, POV Alternating, Post-Hogwarts, Spooky Houses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 19:25:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12777822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lauren3210/pseuds/lauren3210
Summary: While on assignment, Harry and Draco get stuck in a house far out in the woods, a house that seems intent on exploiting their darkest fears.





	Fear and all His Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alpha_exodus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpha_exodus/gifts).



> Dear giftee, I really hope you enjoy this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it! Thank you to my wonderful beta, who always knows exactly what I need to hear. Huge thanks to the mods for putting up with all my flailing; you girls are absolute treasures!

The elevator came to its usual abrupt halt, slamming Harry into Ron’s armpit and smacking his elbow off the handrail. Ron steadied him with a shove that was probably supposed to be a friendly pat, as the lift got even more crowded. Ron, always bad tempered in the mornings, glared up at the fifty or so memos fluttering near the ceiling. His right hand twitched.

"Don’t do it," Harry warned, letting his shoulders bang against the mirrored back wall as the lift shot off towards its next destination. "The secretarial pool sent you cursed post for a month the last time."

"They’ve got to invent a better system than this," Ron muttered, flapping an irate hand at a particular memo that seemed to keep losing its flight. "Buggering things. Those papercuts were bloody worth it."

"Not what you said at the time," Harry sing-songed, and then left it alone. If Ron wanted to brave another month of getting chewed out by Pritchard because all his paperwork had his blood on it, Harry wasn’t going to stop him.

"So, tonight," Ron said, as the lift slammed to a stop and everyone began to file out. "What time d’you reckon?"

"What?"

Ron stopped smacking at paper birds to glare at Harry instead. "Seamus’s birthday thing? Tonight at the Golden Gryphon? You know, that thing we’ve been talking about all morning?" Ron shook his head in exasperation. "Honestly mate, where’s your head been at the past couple of weeks?"

"Nowhere," Harry said quickly, feeling his cheeks heat. He smacked Ron on the arm and pushed him in the direction of their office. "It’s Friday, it’s early, and I haven’t had my coffee yet. Give me a chance to wake up, yeah?"

"Fine. But whatever you’ve been moping about lately, you’d better sort it out by tonight. Don’t want to upset Seamus by not being in the proper party mood." Ron craned his neck to stare at Harry pointedly. "You know what’ll happen."

Harry shuddered slightly. Seamus had the habit of zeroing in on anyone not having the right amount of fun and plonking down next to them, yelling the Irish national anthem into their ears until they either perked up or went deaf.

"You can even bring Ferret Face, if you want to, although Merlin knows why you would."

Harry stopped dead. Ron didn’t even notice.

"And if you try to tell me again _why,_ I might have to punch you. I haven’t had my coffee yet either… Harry? You alright, mate?"

"What?" Harry shook his head, aimed for a smile in Ron’s direction. It felt like more of a grimace, but he couldn’t really help it. "Yeah, fine. Listen, I’m going to run to the gents, grab me a drink, yeah?" He turned on the spot and headed back down the hall before Ron could answer.

Inside the bathroom stall, Harry pressed his heated forehead to the cool tiles, muttering to himself. This couldn’t go on. He couldn’t keep getting panic attacks every time someone even so much as _mentioned_ his partner. He couldn’t keep on feeling sick every time he turned up to work, couldn’t keep on stuttering out his progress to his boss because Malfoy was standing close to Harry, couldn’t keep on shaking nearly out of his skin every time they had to touch each other to Apparate.

"For fuck’s sake, it’s not the first time you’ve been struck down," Harry mumbled to himself, forcing himself to get under control. "It’s not that big of a deal." Maybe if he said it often enough it would even become true.

He flushed the loo and exited the stall, washed his hands and avoided looking at himself in the mirror, all the while silently talking himself down. By the time he’d made it back into the hallway, he hoped he no longer looked as though he was on the verge of a mental breakdown. He paused outside the entrance to the Auror offices, took a deep breath, and repeated his mantra once again before heading inside into the usual early morning sleepy chaos.

He found Ron over by the coffee pot, talking with Dean and Lisa Turpin. A quick scan of the bullpen offered no sign of a white blond head, and Harry blew out a relieved breath as he joined them. 

"I’m telling you, the Cannons are going to win it this year, for sure!"

"If you say so, mate," Dean replied blandly, rolling his eyes for Harry’s benefit. "Football teams go from the bottom of the league one year and straight to the top the next all the time."

"Do they?" Ron asked eagerly, always desperate for anything that could be used as proof for his claims.

"Nope." 

Harry laughed as Ron spluttered, and shoved his friend out of the way of the coffee pot. "Cheers Dean, he’ll be moaning about that all day now."

"At least you get a few hours away from him during the day," Lisa said, handing Ron a tissue to wipe away his coffee spills. "I’m the one that’s going to be hearing it."

"Shut it, you," Ron said, pointing a finger at his partner. Lisa raised an eyebrow and smacked the finger away.

"Come on, you plank. We still need to go over yesterday’s file before we hand it over to Pritchard." She led Ron away by a fistful of robes, leaving Harry with enough space to finally get to the coffee.

"I don’t know why we all hang out around here," Dean commented, eying his mug with distaste. "Stuff tastes like sewage."

"Probably because it’s free," Harry said, pouring himself a generous helping of the brown sludge masquerading as coffee.

"True, we are all tight bastards here." Dean clinked his mug against the side of Harry’s. "Oh shit, here comes Pritchard. See you later, Harry."

Harry made his way through the maze of cubicles with his coffee, dodging left and right to avoid Pritchard’s assessing stare. Their boss was a fair man, but he did like order: everything and everyone in its place. That meant Harry and the rest of the junior Aurors were meant to be in their assigned cubicles by nine on the dot, when Pritchard made his rounds. Once the briefing was done, they were given pretty much free reign to investigate their assigned cases however they liked, but if they weren’t there for morning rounds, they were likely to suffer Pritchard’s considerable wrath.

"Potter. Where’s Malfoy?"

Unless they weren’t there at all, that is, and then it was their partner that got it in the neck.

"Not sure, Sir," Harry said, flipping through the paperwork in his hands purely so he could avoid looking in his boss’s face. Stand him in front of any old wanker, and Harry was a fluent and unrepentant liar, but he did have trouble not telling the truth to people he respected. "He’s probably running late, but I can catch him up on anything he misses."

If he could get Malfoy to stand still for long enough, that was. His partner had been avoiding Harry for nearly a month now, which made it a little difficult to get the job done. He’d slink in as Pritchard’s door opened, stay for as long as it took to fill their boss in on their progress, then saunter right back out again, a list of investigative leads fluttering into Harry’s lap. Today was the first time Malfoy hadn’t turned up for the morning briefing though. 

"Fine," Pritchard said, the look on his face suggesting otherwise. "Is that the updated case file?"

"Yep, all ready to send off to the legal department." Harry handed the file over, crossing his fingers that Pritchard wouldn’t notice how divided their investigation had been.

"Excellent, good work, the both of you." Pritchard waved his wand once, sending the file to his office to await his signature, then waved it again so a brand new file landed on Harry’s desk. "Here’s your next one. The Muggle Liaison Office want this house checked out; according to the local Muggle Police, the place has got some ‘seriously weird vibes’, whatever that means. Go and have a look, and make sure it’s nothing to do with us, got it?"

"Yes, Sir," Harry said. He picked up the file and pretended to study it until Pritchard moved on, then flung it back down onto his desk with a sigh. He glared at the door for a few minutes, but when Malfoy still hadn’t shown himself by the time Pritchard had made his way back into his office, Harry shook his head firmly. He wasn’t going to do this. He wasn’t going to moon and sigh and generally act like a prick, simply because he’d been turned down for a stupid bloody date. He picked up his wand, conjured a Patronus, then grabbed the file and made his way back down to the Apparition points. If Malfoy wanted to join him, great. If not, then fuck him too.

* * *

_"... address is Park Farm, just off Mountnessing Road. We’ll have to walk from there, but I’m not waiting any longer than half an hour, so move your arse, Malfoy, for fuck’s sake."_

The majestic white stag dissolved, its stomping front foot the last to disappear. Harry was definitely pissed off. Draco sighed and finally sat up, his back protesting at the night spent on Pansy’s supremely uncomfortable chaise longue.

"I take it you’re still avoiding him, then," the woman herself said loudly, a waft of _Chanel_ preceding her entrance. "At least, I assume that’s why you’ve been camped out at my house for over a fortnight." She sipped from an black china mug, sighing in deep contentment. "I know it’s not to get in my knickers."

"I have absolutely no interest in your knickers." Draco threw back the sheet and pressed his bare feet into the Aubusson rug below. "And I’m not avoiding anyone."

Pansy rolled her eyes dramatically over the rim of her coffee. "I have never met anyone who lies as badly as you do, sweetheart." She cocked her head to the side in thought. "Although I haven’t spent that much time around Hufflepuffs."

Draco glared at his best friend. "Did you liken me to a Hufflepuff?"

Pansy shrugged."If the Prada shoe fits…""

"It is too damned early in the morning for you to be such a harpy," Draco said, and stood up to go and find some coffee. "And I lie _extremely_ well, I’ll have you know."

"Unless it has something to do with Potter, maybe."

Draco ignored that and followed the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Pansy might be a bitch in the mornings, but her French press was worth it. He poured himself a cup, and forced himself not to turn around at the sound of her kitten heels clacking across the flagstones behind him.

"You’re going to have to talk to him eventually, you know. I’ve heard Auror partners need to do that occasionally," she said lightly, pushing right into his space and perching herself on the counter. 

"I know." Draco swallowed a mouthful of perfect coffee, and sighed. "I don’t know what to say to him."

"What’s there to say?" Pansy shrugged, swinging her legs so that her shoes smacked obnoxiously into the cabinet doors. "He asked you out, and you said no because you’re an idiot who can’t have nice things. Move on to the pining forever part already."

"I have no idea why I confide in you," Draco said with a shake of his head.

"Because I tell you what you need to hear. Now go and get dressed, and make sure your partner doesn’t get his delectable arse blown off."

Draco did as he was told, and twenty-eight minutes later found himself standing beneath a faded brick archway, gravel mixed with moss and crisp autumn leaves beneath his feet. The air shimmered about a foot in front of him, and on the other side of the barrier, Draco could see Harry leaning up against a telegraph pole, talking to an old woman wearing a fuzzy bathrobe with matching slippers. 

He stayed hidden behind the barrier for a few moments, watching as Harry wrapped up his conversation and sent the old woman back inside her house. He looked down at his wand, frowned, and sighed, obviously wondering if Draco was going to show up at all. Draco wanted it to be different, wanted to walk through the barrier with a smile just for Harry, smooth away those frown lines and receive a grin in response. But he couldn’t, because things were awkward now. Fucking when they were both drunk and celebrating wasn’t enough for Harry anymore… Now he wanted to _date._

The invisibility barrier fluttered around him as he stepped past, and Draco enjoyed a brief moment of warm surprise on Harry’s face, before the frown returned and his green eyes turned back to scanning the lane in front of him. Autumn had announced its arrival weeks ago, and leaves and twigs swirled across the ground, the wind teasing at Harry’s hair and the ends of his scarf. His cheeks were flushed from the chilly air, and he looked as windswept and exhilarated as he used to do touching down after a Quidditch game. He looked beautiful. And pissed off.

"Finally," he said, shoving his parchment pad and quill into a pocket of his long maroon peacoat. "You’re lucky Pritchard was in a good mood this morning, otherwise I’d be hexing your face full of boils right about now."

"Sorry," Draco replied, and he _was,_ even if his tone didn’t exactly convey the sentiment. "I was dealing with some… personal issues."

Harry stared at him for a long moment, tongue moving over his teeth behind his lips. Then he nodded. "Fine. But you could have given me a heads up. We are still partners." 

He mumbled something else under his breath, but the wind carried it over to Draco anyway. _Even if you hate me now._ Draco decided to let that go. It was probably for the best.

"So, what are we here for?" He asked, and took a look around himself. Tucked away from the road sat what looked like an old farmhouse, a small, broken down windmill peeking out over the rooftop. Mullioned windows, with creeping ivy climbing the walls, it looked like the quintessential old village cottage.

"We’re not here for anything," Harry said. "Myrtle Greenstick lives here; she’s a Squib, and the only non-Muggle for miles, apparently. She keeps watch on the Apparition point for the Ministry, and tells us if she finds anything magic related going on around here. Her son works out of the local police station; she was the one who alerted the MLO to the problem."

"Which is?"

Harry gestured in front of him and began walking down the lane, which curved and vanished round a bend a few hundred yards ahead of them. Draco fell into step beside him, and Harry recapped the file for him as they walked.

"According to the locals, there’s an abandoned house about a mile down this road. It’s been empty for decades.The bushes round the edge of the property have grown so wild that you can’t even see past them anymore." Harry pulled at his scarf, tucking it closer around his chin before shoving his hands in his pockets. "Apparently, over the last few years, weird things have been happening near it. Car accidents have gone up by three hundred percent, drivers swearing they’d seen scary things and swerving. Noises at night. People talking about not wanting to be anywhere near this area." Harry tipped his head to the house behind them. "Even Myrtle swears she’s heard things in the middle of the night, and she’s convinced they’re coming from this old house."

Draco frowned. "If it’s a haunting, this is a job for the Department of Mysteries, surely."

"God, yes." Harry nodded. "If there’s a ghost in there, we are fucking right off and throwing this case over to them. Pritchard wants us to make sure it isn’t a dark artifact doing something first."

"Fair enough. How far down this road did you say it was?"

"About a mile." Harry raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly down at Draco’s shoes. "You know, you should really invest in a pair of boots that _won’t_ make you fall flat on your face, should you ever need to run."

"Wouldn’t really be that much of an investment." Draco sniffed, sending an admiring glance down at his brand new dragonhide boots. They had pointed toes, and the soles were so thin they felt like walking on air. Now _they_ were an investment. Looking stunning from head to literal toe was nothing to be sneezed at.

They walked in silence for a while, keeping to the edge of the tightly curving lane. Thankfully no cars passed, or they would have had to jump into the bushes that lined the quiet road. 

"Hang on," Harry said suddenly, pausing in the road. "I think I see it."

Draco scanned the lines of trees and bushes to either side of them, trying to get a glimpse of a house behind, but found nothing. "Where?"

"Look at the tarmac," Harry said, pointing. "All those skid marks. It’s got to be around here somewhere."

By some unspoken agreement, Harry moved to the left and Draco went right, searching along the sides of the road for signs where a house might be found. It took them a while, the quiet surrounding them becoming more and more silent. Draco wasn’t even sure he could hear any signs of wildlife in the area, and the longer they searched, the more the hairs on the back of his neck stood out.

Something didn’t want them here.

"Here," Harry said finally, sounding a little subdued. Draco crossed the road to meet him and together they used their wands to push the foliage back enough for them to squeeze through. On the other side was a meadow of wildflowers, grown almost shoulder height, dry and brown and barren. Far away on the other side, Draco could make out what looked like the side of a dilapidated old barn.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" he asked, suppressing a shudder as he gazed across the field.

"Aren’t you?" Harry replied, a look of resignation on his face. "One quick look, and then we get the hell out of here, agreed?"

"Agreed," Draco said, and they began to make their way through the meadow filled with dead flowers.

* * *

The weeds were tall, tangled roots sticking up out of the dry, cracked earth, just right for twisting an ankle. It was almost impossible to see where they were treading, and more than once Harry had to stop and free himself from a mass of brambles and brown, crisp leaves. It was an uncomfortable feeling to have only his head sticking out above the swaying fronds, not being able to see what he was walking towards. It made him feel weirdly exposed, almost like a target was painted across his forehead. The building didn’t seem to be getting any closer, either.

"Merlin’s arse!"

Harry swung around at Draco’s curse, hand gripping tighter to his wand. "What is it?"

Draco’s head disappeared beneath the grass for a moment, tugging on something that didn’t seem like it wanted to be found. "I don’t know. It’s got three wheels. Maybe one fell off?"

Harry waded through the brush to stand at his side, looking down at the thing that had tripped Draco. It had been painted blue once, now chipped and rusted. One handle was stuck firmly in the ground, weeds twisting through and around the wheels, the chain, the faded red leather seat. "It’s a tricycle," Harry said, staring down at the innocuous little thing.

"So it’s supposed to only have three wheels?"

Harry nodded, still staring. "It’s for extra balance, until the kid’s old enough to balance on two. Like how a kid’s broomstick only goes a foot above the ground; it’s a safety thing."

"Ah, okay, that makes sense." Draco tugged at the remaining handle again, then gave up when the earth refused to give up its prize. "A family must have lived here at some point then, I’m guessing." Harry felt him shudder lightly. "If it turns out to be a child ghost, I’m going straight down the pub to get gobstoned."

Harry made a little noise of agreement, not really listening. He couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from the little trike. There was a little yellow sticker on the leg bar, half picked away by time, but still Harry could see how it had been stuck haphazardly, slapped on by chubby fingers. A dumper truck, that’s what it had been.

"... if we stay much longer. Potter? What the bloody hell is the matter with you?"

A hand gripped his arm, and Harry finally looked up and away, into Draco’s bemused face. "What?" He shook his head, blinking up over the sea of dead flowers. "Sorry, I just…" He looked back down at the tricycle, almost unwillingly. "My cousin had one of these once. It looked the same, even the sticker…"

"Well, I’m sure they weren’t uncommon for Muggle families, were they?" Draco gave Harry’s arm a little push, and they rounded the trike, leaving it there to continue being consumed by the undergrowth. "Oh, it’s not a barn after all."

Harry followed Draco’s gaze and gave an involuntary start. The house seemed a lot closer than it had been before they’d spotted the bike. Harry could make out the top two rows of windows, some boarded, some broken and dark. The top sill of what looked like a front porch peeked out above the gently wafting strands of grass.

"Come on, the quicker we get this checked out, the quicker we can get that drink," Draco said, shoving his way through the weeds with renewed purpose. "It’s too quiet here."

It _was_ quiet, Harry suddenly noticed. There were no birds in the trees, or the sounds of small woodland animals going about their lives. The main road was less than a mile away to the south, and yet Harry couldn’t even hear the low murmur of cars whizzing past. Even the gently swaying flowers weren’t making a sound, despite their dry, raspy leaves. All Harry could hear was Draco a few steps in front of him, and his own heartbeat. 

And the house was watching him.

He could feel it, in the way he felt compelled to stare up at the dark gaping holes that once were windows, and yet at the same time couldn’t quite bring himself to look. He could hear it, how his breaths sounded louder than usual, the slight hitch in his chest. He could see it, in the sudden, intangible flash of _something_ in his peripheral vision, gone before he even had time to turn his head.

"Tell me you feel it too," Harry said quietly, reaching out to touch Draco’s hand, needing the reassurance.

"Of course," Draco replied grimly, not brushing Harry’s hand off, waiting for him to step up beside him. "I don’t usually feel the need to hold hands with my work partner."

The subtle jab brought Harry back to himself a little, and he felt almost foolish for acting like a child afraid of the dark. Almost. He didn’t let go of Draco’s hand, and Draco didn’t try to make him, and together they stepped through the last of the flowers, feet crunching quietly on lichen covered gravel.

"Well," Draco said, staring up at the house standing before them. "If the architect was going for the creepy haunted house look, I’d say he managed remarkably well."

Harry had to agree. It was the style of house that children drew, bright crayon slashes depicting a front door with windows to either side, steepled roof, lopsided chimney. The building in front of them was like a parody of those innocent drawings: porch steps sagging and broken; slate tiles slipping and covered in moss; broken windows, leftover glass sticking up like jagged teeth. The outside had been weatherboarded, not all that unusual for this part of the country, but still a little off-putting. It reminded Harry of a book he’d read once, in his old primary school library.

"Hell Hall," he murmured to himself.

Draco snorted, the sound echoing dully around the strange little courtyard they found themselves in. "It wouldn’t surprise me if that was its name." He shifted his weight back and forth on his feet, then sighed and turned to pin Harry with a look. "Well, come on, then. Which of us here is the brave bloody Gryffindor?"

* * *

The porch steps creaked ominously as Harry stepped up, but held his weight until he reached the double front doors. Draco waited on the gravel, keeping an eye on the meadow behind them. He’d never seen so many dead flowers, still somehow holding on tight to their desiccated leaves and petals. As though they’d been pressed between the pages of a giant book.

"It’s not locked," Harry said lowly, and Draco heard him turning the handle a fraction. "Probably local kids mucking about, scaring people."

"Wouldn’t really explain all the car accidents up on the road, though."

"I dunno. Dudley and his mates used to get up to all sorts. I wouldn’t put it past a bunch of teenagers finding some way to damage the road." Harry pressed his face up against the smeared glass window, then shook his head. "Shall we check it out, then?"

"Is there another reason we’re standing around out here? Get on with it, Potter."

"As you wish," Harry said, and depressed the handle.

The door swung wide open, as though inviting them inside. The interior was pitch black; from the bottom of the stairs, Draco could barely see more than a foot of what looked like badly scuffed wooden floorboards. "Anything interesting?"

"Can’t see much at all, that porch doesn’t let in much light," Harry said, shuffling closer to the door frame and peering in. "I doubt anyone’s been here for a while, though. I can’t see any footprints in the dust."

Draco stopped watching the meadow and stepped up behind Harry. "Well, ghosts don’t leave footprints, they float." He looked over Harry’s shoulder, but couldn’t see any more than he had from the bottom of the stairs. "Let’s find the bloody thing and let some other poor bastard come and deal with it."

It was just as quiet inside the house as it had been out in the field, although that wasn’t really surprising. Draco squinted through the gloom, but couldn’t make out anything more than shadows against shadows. He pulled out his wand and cast a Lumos, Harry following suit a moment later. They stood inside what would once had been a rather majestic entrance hall. Not as ornate or grandiose as Malfoy Manor, but still rather impressive. Or it would have been, had the floors been clean, the walls painted any colour other than dirt brown. The chandelier above their heads was intricately designed, and covered with cobwebs so thick that the crystals were little more than an impression. Doorways stood to either side of the space, and a large, wide staircase could just be seen by the edges of their combined wand light.

"What do you reckon? Split up and take a floor each?" Harry’s words fell dully into the air, which was strange. The walls and floor were bare; there should have been an echo.

"Fine. I’ll go up. Buzz my wand if you need help."

"Same to you," Harry said, and turned towards the doorway on the left.

Draco held his wand out as far in front of him as he could, and cautiously made his way towards the staircase surrounded in shadow. If he hadn’t spent a year living with a murderous nutter and his pet snake, Draco might even have found himself feeling a touch unnerved.

* * *

The Lumos refused to get any brighter, no matter how many times Harry repeated the spell. It was as though there was something in the air, dampening both sight and sound. Harry strained his ears for any sign from Draco, stairs or floorboards creaking, but there was nothing. He resisted the temptation of buzzing his partner’s wand; that was for emergencies only, and he didn’t think the crawling feeling on the back of his neck counted. Instead he moved further into the room, walking slowly in case he bumped into anything. The floor beneath him was covered in dust, and his own footsteps barely made a sound. His breathing was loud in his ears. The room felt like an enormous cavern, going on for miles and miles, no end in sight.

Then, right at the furthest edge of his wand light, Harry spied a low, hulking shape. Waist-high, bulky, and covered in what looked like dirty brown fur. Some kind of animal? Harry edged closer, tiptoeing despite the fact that his feet made hardly a sound, keeping his eyes on the thing in front of him. When it finally came into full view, Harry almost laughed at himself. 

A sofa. A horrible one, with fabric made out of something he’d expect to find on a teddy bear, ugly stains and lumpy cushions. There were probably fleas jumping happily between the fibres of that gross material, and Harry suspected anyone sitting on it would get a crick in their back within minutes, but still. Just a sofa. He rounded it, more furniture coming into view as he moved into the room proper. His wand finally seemed to be a bit brighter, because he could see that he was standing in the middle of a seating arrangement. Two of the large, ugly sofas bracketed each other, a further two armchairs staring over at a tall, soot-stained fireplace. Old wood and ashes rested in the grate, a rusted metal poker leaning against the soot stained bricks. Like the hallway, there was nothing on the walls, no knickknacks or trinkets on the mantelpiece. The window was boarded up from the outside, Harry remembered, and he could see no sign of any curtains. Apart from the gross old furniture, there were no signs of life at all.

Except for the low moaning coming from behind the second sofa, that was.

The noise hadn’t suddenly started either, Harry realised, his muscles tensing and his breath catching in his throat. He had somehow become aware it was there, like he had with the furniture. It was a quiet whimpering sort of sound, low and pained, the odd snuffling noise thrown in every few seconds. It sounded like somebody was dying.

Gripping his wand tighter in his suddenly sweat-slicked fingers, Harry turned his head towards the noise. He could see the sofa even more clearly now, could see the pale striped pattern hidden amongst the grain of the fur. Fat, lumpy cushions rested on either end, their colour lighter than the sofa fabric, an orangey-brown that looked oddly bright against the mud brown of the rest. Behind it was nothing but shadows, darker in places where anything could be lurking, waiting for the moment when Harry rounded the sofa to see what was making the noise.

Because he _would_ have to look. He took a deep breath, steeling himself, and turned fully to investigate the source of the sound. 

The noise never let up, not even for the space of a breath. Harry shuffled closer, skirting the end of the sofa, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the deepest parts of the blackness. A shape creeped into view, hunched down on the floor directly behind the sofa. Harry lifted his wand higher, and the blue light lit upon a pale, shaking hand, fingers gripping like claws into the back of the furniture. A pale, freckled hand. A person, huddled under a voluminous hooded cloak. Harry could see shoulders shaking beneath the dark, heavy material. He bent down instinctively, and as he did, the head turned upwards to face him. A shock of bright red hair registered, and then Harry was looking into the eyes of his best friend.

"Ron?" Harry stared, uncomprehending. "How did you get here? What’s going on? What happened?"

Ron’s blue eyes were glacial as he glared up at Harry, ringed with red and smeared with tears. "You took her from me," he muttered, voice a low, rasping growl. "How could you?"

"What?" Harry said stupidly. "Look, what’s going on here? Did Pritchard send you here as back up?"

"I’ve always been here," Ron whispered back, mouth pulled into a cruel sneer. "I’ll always be here, until you give her back!"

The last words were a shout, screamed out from a throat raw from sobs, teeth bared and gnashing. Harry reared back, heart stuttering in his chest. Something was very wrong here.

"Give who back?" he asked, warily.

"You _know_ who!" Ron pulled himself up from the floor in a movement far more fluid than Harry had ever seen his friend do. It was as though he had been pulled up by a string to the middle of his chest, a marionette being orchestrated by an invisible hand. The folds of his robe slipped open, and a large golden object swung out in an arc, held around his neck on a gold chain.

"How did you.. That’s not…" Harry choked on his own spit, unable to form the words. No, it couldn’t be. That locket had been destroyed, he’d watched as Ron had struck it with the sword, in that lonely little clearing in the woods. "I didn’t take her from you," he stuttered out holding his hands up to ward his friend off.

Except it _wasn’t_ Ron, was it? Ron was at work, Harry had seen him and Lisa leaving on their own job just a few hours ago. This Ron wasn’t real, the locket wasn’t real, which meant…

"You’re a boggart!"

The relief was so all encompassing that he laughed out loud. He raised his wand almost lazily, pointed it in the direction of this poor imitation of his best friend. _"Riddikulus!"_

"You think a child’s spell like that will get rid of us, do you?"

Harry yelped and jumped as he looked behind him. One of the shadows was moving, coming closer. Another thumping step, and the figure of Mad-Eye Moody came into view. His magical eye was missing, nothing but a gaping hole in its place. His face was more scarred and pitted than it had ever been, and the suspicion in those cold eyes held none of the warmth Harry had seen in the real Moody.

The thing that wasn’t Ron was still behind him; Harry could feel his malevolent gaze on the back of his neck. More shadows were moving now, creeping in towards the pool of light from his wand. He didn’t want them to get any closer; he realised, with a dawning horror, that he would know the faces he’d see.

This was no boggart. And whatever it was, it was strong. Harry could feel it in the air; a strange, unpleasant sucking sensation, something pulling the magic in and bending it into unnatural shapes.

"This is because of you," another voice whispered to Harry’s left, and he whipped his head around. Lavender Brown looked back at him from the corner of the room, her face a mess of gaping slashes, a present from Greyback. That wasn’t right, Harry knew in the back of his mind. Lavender had healed well enough over the years, a team of Healers managing to get her wounds to look like nothing more than a few silvery lines. But something was stopping him from seeing it rationally, muddying his mind and clogging up his throat.

"And this," said George Weasley appearing suddenly in front of him, head turned to the side to show off his missing ear. Blood, thick and dark, spilled steadily down his neck, congealing in a pool on his shoulder.

"You hurt us, damaged us," they all whispered together, slinking closer to Harry, lone prey in the midst of a group of predators.

"Killed us," said an angry voice behind him, and Harry turned and lifted his arm just in time for the poker to come crashing down on him. He cried out, pressed his arm close to his chest. It was broken; he could feel the odd way the bone sat against the palm of his other hand. His wand light had gone out, but it didn’t matter; he could see them all as plain as day. Tonks and Remus, Sirius. And Fred, holding the poker up high above his head, readying for another blow.

With a wrenching sob, Harry ran.

* * *

The stairs and landing were covered with old shag carpeting, flattened and grey with years’ worth of dust. Certainly no Muggle had been up these stairs for a decade or more, and any witch or wizard would have to have been very good at leaving the place undisturbed. Draco was glad; this case was looking more and more like a job for the Department of Mysteries.

There was a bit more light on the second floor than there had been downstairs, and Draco assumed that some of the weak autumn light had managed to find a few cracks in the boarded up windows. Apart from the dust, the stairs were in good condition; his shoes made barely a squeak as he ascended. The landing wrapped around the stairwell, mahogany stained balustrades that had once been beautifully carved but had worn down with age. Draco frowned at them in the dim light. For a moment, they had looked like the ones in his childhood home, snakes twisting up the sides, the hissing heads as handholds. His hand jerked, fingers stretched out to touch. A sound came from behind him, like boots scuffing across dusty floors. Draco turned, looking for the source of the noise.

The stairs let out onto a short landing, five heavy wood doors leading off into various rooms. They were all shut, except for the last, which was open a little. Dim light shone through the crack, dust motes swirling through the shallow beam. The sound came again, a dull, muted clump, this time accompanied by a swish of fabric. Either someone had broken in without disturbing the dust covered floors, or this was the ghost they were looking for. Gripping his wand, Draco moved silently towards the door. It was cracked open only a sliver, enough to let out what little light there was, but not enough for Draco to see any more than the doorjamb on the other side when he pressed his face up against it. He could hear more movement now; the faint shuffling of paper, the slight squeak of leather, nails against a wooden surface. Draco thought about calling for Harry, but stopped himself at the last moment. The apparition might disappear before Harry could arrive, and they needed corroboration before they could turn it over to a different department. He swiftly reminded himself of a few defensive spells, and pushed the door open.

The room on the other side of the door looked exactly like his father’s study in the Manor. No, scratch that, Draco thought as he stared across the space. It wasn’t _exactly like._ It _was_ his father’s study. It was the same size, even though the house couldn’t possibly hold such a space upstairs and still have four other rooms. The dark wood bookcases that lined three walls held all of the books and trinkets that Draco remembered staring up at as a child: faded bindings with old print on them, barely legible both due to age and the fact that most of them weren’t even in English; glass baubles that held swirling colours deep within them; potions tubes and equipment; other tools that had made Draco’s stomach hurt just to look at them. The Malfoy genealogy tree that took up the entire remaining wall, nowhere near the size of the Black family tree but just as illustriously sewed, just as selective in which family members were included. The enormous dark wood desk that dominated the room, with all the secret drawers and compartments that could be found only by moving the inkwell in a counterclockwise direction, or moving the blotter a centimetre to the left. Everything about the room, down to every tiny little detail, was the same as he had seen almost every day of his childhood.

Including the man sitting in the big leather chair behind the desk.

"Draco," Lucius said, in the same tone he’d always used for as long as Draco had known him. Condescension, with just a hint of disappointment. "What have you been told about entering my study without knocking?"

"Father?" Draco whispered, staring at the apparition that had taken on Lucius Malfoy’s form. He looked exactly as he had when he used to spend most of his time occupying his study; he hadn’t even looked up from the parchment sheets spread in front of him. 

"Well? What is it? I have important business to attend to, so stop standing there gawping like a Muggle, spit it out!"

No, he didn’t look like exactly the same; back then the only problems Lucius had had been to do with discerning whom in the Ministry he should bribe that day. That Lucius had always looked confident and serene; long blond hair smoothed back into a perfect ponytail at the nape of his neck; exquisite robes accentuating his slender figure his expression one of faint disdain. Nor did he look as he looked now, after the War had taken everything from him, put him in Azkaban to rot. The Lucius Malfoy Draco knew now had sallow skin, hollowed eyes and a blank, slightly lost expression across his drawn features. No, this Lucius was from the time in between, a time when Draco’s childhood home had been taken over by horrors that even the Malfoy family hadn’t dared to imagine. Aunt Bellatrix and that terrifying husband of hers, the terrible, awful Fenrir Greyback and the way he always smelled of decaying flesh, the constant sound of chains from the cellar, clinking together and rattling across the icy cold stone floors. And of course, the Dark Lord himself, and that horrifying pet that slithered unchecked through the hallways that Draco had once played in as a boy.

The apparition looked up from his desk, and Draco could see now, how his hair was unkempt and steadily turning white, lines around eyes that darted nervously at the door behind where Draco stood, the slight shaking in the pale, thin fingers that gripped his quill too tight, a poor replacement for his stolen wand. "Let me guess," Lucius said, a thin approximation of his usual cold smile pulling at his bloodless lips. "You want me to speak up on your behalf, for your failures thus far."

No, no, _no._ Draco almost whimpered out loud; he knew what was about to happen next, had lived it only a few years ago. He still dreamt about it often. Christmas during his seventh year, back from school with no new information which he could use to secure his family’s safety. Punishment was coming, he knew, torture that would have been worse had his father not stepped in at the last minute, begging his Master not to hurt his only son.

No, no, this wasn’t _real._ All Draco had to do was send an SOS to Harry through the link in their wands, and this… this _thing_ would go away. Because this wasn’t real.

"Well, I’m afraid this time I can’t help," Lucius said loftily. He dropped the quill and folded his arms across his chest. Draco watched ink drip out onto the blotter, soaking into the crisp white sheet. "The Dark Lord is angry with you, Draco. As am I." His father looked at him with one eyebrow raised, becoming more and more like his old imposing self, right before Draco’s eyes. "I’m disappointed. I expected better results from a Malfoy, from my own son."

A dull thump sounded from out in the hallway, but Draco was too mesmerised by his father’s inexorable transformation to turn and look. A low scuffing noise followed, getting closer.

"It seems the Dark Lord is unable to forgive your incompetence this time, Draco."

"No," Draco moaned, involuntarily. "Father…"

"Incompetence is not to be tolerated, especially not when we are so close to everything we’ve set out to achieve. I will no longer let you hide behind our robes. Should you survive, it will be a lesson well learned."

 _No,_ that wasn’t what had happened. Lucius had spoken up for Draco, convinced the Dark Lord that Draco was of more use at school trying to glean as much information about the resistance as he could. Draco had only had to suffer a few rounds of the Cruciatus Curse, and he’d taken it gladly, knowing that it could have been so much worse. He could have been given to Fenrir, a threat that had been often used when Draco failed to deliver on the Dark Lord’s requests. It could have been his mother, made to take the punishment for him while he watched. It could have been Aunt Bellatrix at the other end of the wand, her maniacal laugh resounding off the stone walls as she held the curse for far too long. It could have been that terrifying snake…

And he could hear it now, the scaly swishing of the hideously large reptile as it slithered up behind him, the low hissing noise as it poked out its tongue, tasting Draco’s fear on the air. His legs cramping from terror, Draco managed a half stumble as he turned to meet his fate. Nagini stared up at him, poison yellow eyes fixed on his. Every bone in his body began an uncontrollable shaking.

"Stop snivelling, Draco, and face your punishment like the Malfoy I expect you to be," Lucius said.

Like a child, Draco lifted his hands up to cover his eyes. His wand dropped with a quiet thud to the dusty floor.

* * *

Somewhere in the darkness, Harry sat, knees drawn up to his chest and hands shaking uncontrollably. He knew it wasn’t real, that there was something going on inside this house, something dark and insidious and terrifying. But that truth was buried deep inside his head, and there was too many layers of deep, primal fear surrounding it for Harry to get at it. He couldn’t get the images out of his head, the broken, bloodied bodies of everyone that he had failed to save.

And he _had_ failed, the walls whispered to him, in a chorus of voices he never thought he’d hear again outside of his own nightmares. Dobby and Colin Creevey, Snape and Dumbledore, his parents, George, Remus and Tonks, Mad-Eye. Even Hedwig added her low, mournful hoot to the melee. The walls seeped red with the blood of his family and friends, the people he was supposed to have protected and instead had hidden behind.

He’d careened out of the dark, dusty living room without a thought to where he was going, needing only to get _away;_ away from his friends and loved ones and the blame in their eyes. But their voices followed him, out into the hallway and into each room that he fell into, heedless of anything but the things he wished desperately to leave behind him. He barely noticed how slick the walls were in the darkness, until he passed through a shaft of weak light peeking through a boarded up window showed his hands smudged with something sticky, almost gelatinous, rust-red and warm. The room was a kitchen, he could see the shadowed outlines of cabinets, sink, fridge, pots and pans hanging over an island in the centre of the space. He’d looked at his hands and then at the sink, desperate to rush over and see if water was still running, if he could wash away the manifestation of guilt staining his fingers. But then the whispering had started again, inches behind him, and he’d fled onwards, looking for the front door, looking for Draco, looking for anything that might make this nightmare end.

There were more rooms than Harry had thought possible from the outside, a veritable rabbit warren of doors leading from one to the other without ever seeming to run out or hit the hallway again. His chest hurt and his fingers shook, and his knees threatened to give way every few feet, but the voices were still coming, still accusing him, still promising retribution once they caught up with him, so he pushed on and on, hoping Draco was alright, hoping he would find the stairs or the front door if he could keep going for long enough. And then, just as he thought he couldn’t run any longer, as the fingers stretched out behind him caressed the back of his neck, Harry spied a smaller door , one that would surely lead to a place where he could hide. He threw himself inside and slammed the door shut behind him; it rattled pathetically against the jamb. He fell down to the floor and scuttled back into the corner, waiting for the ghosts of his past to find him. And there he stayed, until the menacing whispers and hissing breaths finally faded away.

He barely noticed it when silence descended. It had taken him three tries to fix his arm, and then he’d wrapped his arms around his knees and buried his head between them, every muscle and nerve tensed for the moment when the visions would strike. But when the quiet finally became apparent, Harry lifted his head, almost surprised. His glasses felt strange on his face, lopsided and tight, an extra lump on the left arm that pressed uncomfortably against his temple. He pulled them off and brought them close to his face, squinting in the gloom at the little knot of cellotape that wrapped around the wire frame. He frowned down at them, adrenaline making his head too fuzzy to concentrate. He hadn’t had to fix his glasses with tape since he joined Hogwarts. When had they broken? Had he fixed them like this? When? He hadn’t stopped for that long in the derelict kitchen, he didn’t think. How long had he even been here?

A muffled thump from above him had Harry’s heart jumping back into his throat, and he instinctively whipped his head back in search of the noise. The back of his skull collided painfully with something rounded and hard, and his vision clouded for a moment. Blinking it back, he turned and scrabbled a hand behind him, finding something wooden and cube-shaped, little round knobs spaced evenly along the front surface. A chest of drawers. Harry stared into the darkness, and other things came into focus, materialising out of the gloom as though placed there by a giant invisible hand the instant Harry looked at them. A couple of shelves sat above the chest of drawers, nailed carelessly to the wall and made of bits of old, splintered wood. The walls were bare planks, insulation sticking out through the slats between. A tiny, crumpled bed was shoved awkwardly into the opposite corner. A dusty light bulb hung from the sharply sloping ceiling, and as Harry looked up, fine fragments of sawdust drifted down, coating everything and making him cough. Another thump resounded, and the walls and ceiling shook.

Harry knew this place. This was where he’d spent the first eleven years of his life.

A fist suddenly pummeled at the door, a threatening but also somehow triumphant sound. "Oi, you! Mum says if you don’t get started on breakfast right now, you’re not getting anything to eat today."

Dudley. Harry was somehow back in his closet under the stairs, and Dudley Dursley was standing right outside, waiting to trip him up and kick him the moment he opened the door.

"Oi, loser! Did you hear me? Come out _now,_ I want scrambled eggs."

The door rattled again as Dudley’s meaty fists pounded on it, and Harry closed his eyes, trying to shut it out. It wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real. He wasn’t a little kid anymore, and he’d gotten away from that awful house and those awful people years ago. 

Hadn’t he? Or had it only been a dream, that flying motorbike come to spin him away to a life filled with magic and adventure?

Dudley took up a rhythmic battering, adding kicks to the bottom of the door for variety. Harry kept his eyes closed and ignored the noise and the nasty words his cousin was calling to him, because he was terrified that if he opened them he’d find out that none of it had happened. There was no Ron, no Hermione, no Weasley household, no Draco, no working for the Aurors at the Ministry of Magic. No magic at all, just a scared little boy who made up entire worlds in his head to escape the misery of his everyday life.

"Dad’s going to be down soon, he’ll wallop you if you’re not in the kitchen. Get. Out. Now!"

"No," Harry whispered to himself, eyes still tightly clenched. "I’m not here, I got away, it was real, it _was._ " He opened his eyes, glared at the still quivering door and pulled himself to his feet. The action calmed him a little; he was taller now, and wider, and his hunched stance proved that something was wrong, different. "This isn’t me anymore. I’m a wizard, and this whole house is pissing me off."

He squared his shoulders, and threw open the door.

* * *

Draco could only imagine that some self-preservation instinct had kicked in, because the moment that snake had reared her ugly head, his legs had been moving before his brain had caught up. He’d dodged the reptile and the thing that wasn’t his father and fled out into the hall, slamming the door shut behind him. He’d left his wand, but he didn’t care, couldn’t think about anything other than getting away from the hissing noises that made his bones feel like they were melting into water. He could still hear it through the closed heavy wood, still hear his father berating him, telling him he deserved his punishment for failing his family, failing in his duty to the Dark Lord’s cause. Lucius’s voice carried through the air around him, multiplying in number and volume until Draco had to clap his hands over his ears to try and drown them out. The walls around him seemed to be trying to close in around him, vibrating with the need to press him in place until he listened to what they were telling him. He didn’t want to listen, he’d heard it before, seen the truth behind the lies in his father’s cool gaze, had known that he’d failed even as his father had protected him, had known he was a disappointment. The voices were louder by the stairs, and after sparing them one quick, terrified glance, he stumbled backwards along the dusty carpet, until his shoulders hit hard, polished wood, a handle digging painfully into the small of his back. There he stayed, eyes shut and ears firmly covered, until the whispers died away and the air around him began to cease its pressure-filled warping. And then, when he thought it might be safe to look, the handle behind him slowly began to turn.

He had time to steady himself but not much more as the door swung silently inwards. Draco lowered his arms and opened his eyes, teeth biting down painfully into his lower lip, unable to imagine what horrors this new room might hold for him. He was surprised therefore, when all that was revealed was a completely dust-free bedroom, bedside lamps glowing softly, invitingly.

It looked like a master bedroom, one that had been decorated plainly, but with obviously good quality items. A four poster bed carved from walnut stood in the centre of the room, the wood polished high enough that he could see his distorted reflection in the corner closest to him. Light white fabric hung from the top, the folds billowing slightly in some imagined breeze. Pillows of all sizes piled high on the mattress in golds and reds, greens and silvers and blues. A large wardrobe stood against the far wall, its doors open and spilling out contents, formal robes and smart suits, jeans and shirts. Photos that moved stood on proud display on top of a tall chest of drawers, a mix of different people that Draco couldn’t quite make out the faces of. Boots and trainers had been flung under a cozy looking armchair in the corner, seat strewn with clothes, parchment and books. Another door in the other corner stood wide open, clouds of steam billowing out gently, bringing with it the faint smell of lavender and lemons, and the sound of muted laughter, whispered words and moans and bottles scattering across a tiled floor.

Draco stepped inside the bedroom, almost drawn in against his will. Behind him, the door swung silently shut. He could hear the presence of a shower now, water drops drumming against glass and porcelain. The murmuring went up briefly in pitch and then down again, tapering off into silence. The shower switched off, and Draco belatedly wondered if he should hide, but before he could make a decision on where, a man walked into the bedroom, a fluffy towel wrapped around his waist.

Draco registered the pale skin and the fine scars that crisscrossed the man’s torso before he understood what he was truly seeing. It was himself, blond hair turned gold by the water, red-blue bruises blooming across collarbones and shoulder. 

The man who wasn’t him walked straight past Draco, and began rummaging in the drawers. With the man’s back now facing him, Draco could see more of those faint bruises, along his shoulder blades and down his back, disappearing beneath the white towel, peeking out on the backs of his thighs. The man pulled out some silky black cloth from the drawer and dropped the towel, and Draco was treated to the sight of himself in full naked glory before the pair of sleep pants covered him from the waist down.

"You don’t need those."

Draco spun around to see Harry sauntering out from the bathroom, wearing nothing but a cocky smile. 

"But I’m sore," Not-Draco grumbled. Neither one of them paid any attention to Draco, standing clear in the middle of the room.

"So?" Harry answered, and strode over to pull at Not-Draco’s wrist. "I had a great day at work, and I want to celebrate." Harry leaned in and kissed him, deep and possessive, hands sliding down to remove the black silk pants. Not-Draco let himself be led over to the bed.

Draco reeled around to the door, only to find nothing but a smooth expanse of wall. The hallway door had disappeared, trapping him inside with his worst nightmare.

Slick kissing noises came from behind him, pillows falling to the floor with muffled thumps. He heard himself giggle and almost vomited on the spot. The photos on the chest of drawers were becoming clearer now: Weasley and his wife waving at the camera; Lovegood and the girl-Weasel pulling silly faces in another; Harry and Draco kissing and laughing, Harry holding his middle finger up to try and block them out, a gold band adorning his third finger. Every single one of Draco had him smiling and waving, hardly a care in the world.

Was this room showing the future? But how could this have happened? _Why_ would he have done this? To his family, to the Malfoy name, to himself? This wasn’t what his life was supposed to _be._

Moans and whispers once more filled the room, and Draco again tried to shut the sounds out with his hands over his ears. He pressed his forehead to the wall and tried to take deep, slow breaths, ignoring everything else in that blasted room. This couldn’t be the future, because he would never have allowed it. He knew what his life was supposed to look like, had had it drilled into him from practically the moment he could talk. He was the last Malfoy, he needed an heir. He would marry a beautiful woman from a proper wizarding family, and he would continue the family line. It didn’t matter that his father was now in Azkaban, or that his mother had been exiled to France, or that the new world order that they had strived to orchestrate had spelled the ruin of their family name. Draco’s sole priority now was to bring back their respect. It was why he had applied to the Aurors; Draco Malfoy, Protector sounded far better than Draco Malfoy, Child Death Eater. Once his profession had earned him back some status, he would marry, and produce the necessary male offspring, and the Malfoy line would prosper once more. His dalliance with Potter was just that; some fun to pass the time until his duty was required. Nowhere did that duty require falling in love with his work partner and settling down into perfect wedded bliss. 

No, this room didn’t show the future. It simply tortured Draco with what it knew he would never have.

"Draco? What the… Oh."

A hand fell on Draco’s shoulder, and he jumped, smacking his head against the wall. Next to him stood Harry, _his_ Harry, in sweat and dust stained Auror robes, hair sticking up and two wands clenched tightly in his hand. He was staring over at the bed, and held one foot out behind him, holding open the now visible hallway door. He swallowed, and Draco watched something like a pained wince pass across his features, before he turned to Draco.

"We need to go. Now."

Draco nodded, grabbed Harry’s wrist, and let himself be pulled through the door.

* * *

"Alright, what in the name of Merlin’s fucking nutsack is going on here?"

Harry waited a moment, making sure that Draco’s blue streak had indeed stopped being rhetorical. He’d been swearing non-stop since they got out of that room - and _that_ was something that needed to wait until Harry had a good long while to think about - almost spitting in Harry’s ear as he followed him down the hall. Draco hadn’t let go of Harry’s wrist, and as Harry thought they could both do with a bit of comfort, he twisted his hand so that they could link fingers. He gave a little squeeze, and was beyond relieved to feel pressure back in kind.

"I don’t know, but I think we’re trapped in here."

"What? What’s that supposed to mean?" Draco’s voice was pitched a little too high to sound properly indignant, but Harry gave him points for trying.

"I had to walk past the front door to get up here," Harry said, making his way steadily towards the top of the stairs, Draco practically treading on his heels he was crowding so close. "Except it wasn’t there."

Draco sucked in a sharp breath. "It can only be opened from the outside."

Harry threw a sharp look over his shoulder. "How do you know that?"

"Because there wasn’t a door on my side in that room, just a blank wall. I thought you’d worked it out, you were holding it open with your foot."

Harry shrugged. "I figured if the front door had disappeared, maybe others would as well. I didn’t think getting stuck in one place would help the situation much."

Draco was silent for a moment. "Good thinking," he said finally, in a grudging tone. It didn’t sound like surprise, so Harry decided he’d take it as a compliment.

"I think downstairs is where we need to be, anyway," he said, pointing his still lit wand down over the banister.

"Why? This entire bloody house is fucking haunted, what should it matter which floor we’re on?"

"It’s not haunted, it’s a Boggart." Harry put one foot out, preparing to begin descending the stairs, but Draco pulled him back by his collar.

"Explain. Now."

Letting out a sigh, Harry looked around them. They were relatively safe here, he supposed - or at least as safe as anywhere inside the house, which wasn’t saying much. The bottom floor had been filled up with shadows again, inky black amorphous blobs that weren’t real shadows at all. The top of the stairs was as good a place as any for a quick regroup. Unless something pushed them down the stairs.

"I thought it was a Boggart when I was downstairs, when I first saw… er, what I saw." Harry wasn’t too keen on reliving that particular memory any time soon. "It reminded me of something that happened back during the War, and Molly…" He trailed off, remembering Molly’s sobs as she tried to banish the Boggart, each incarnation taking on the form of a different dead Weasley. "So I tried to get rid of it, but it didn’t have any effect, and then one of them hit me, so I figured that it _couldn’t_ be…"

"Potter, you’re rambling," Draco interrupted, waving his hand in front of Harry’s face. "Either it is or it isn’t a Boggart, so make up your mind."

"Look at what it’s doing to us," Harry said, and pressed a slightly shaking hand to his sternum. "I don’t know about you, but my heart’s been slamming against my ribs since the moment we walked into that meadow. This is what a Boggart _does,_ only somehow it’s doing it throughout the entire house, even affecting the outside. People crashing their cars because they’ve seen things that couldn’t have been there, the field without a single living thing. It’s _got_ to be a Boggart."

"Like the Screaming Bogey of Strathtully," Draco said, nodding.

"Er, the what?"

Draco rolled his eyes, whites glowing blue in the wand light. "Surely Granger’s told you about this before?"

"Probably." Harry shrugged. "But honestly, when she starts quoting from textbooks, I tend to tune her out. That girl reads, like, a lot."

"And this coming from a man who only ever reads random spells in the margins," Draco said snarkily.

Harry flushed, looking down automatically to Draco’s chest, as though the scars would be showing through his clothes. "Just tell me what this Strath-Bogey is?"

"The Screaming Bogey of Strathtully," Draco repeated. "It was a Boggart found up in Scotland, that had fed off the fears of so many Muggles, it grew into this enormous black shadow, with glowing white eyes. It gained a form that everyone saw, because it _became_ what they feared most."

"Wow. Okay, yeah, that sounds promising. So, I’m guessing we should think up some ways to make gigantic shadows look funny on our way down to the cellar, then."

"Wait, cellar? Why the cellar?" Draco grabbed hold of Harry’s shoulder, stopping him from turning towards the stairs.

"Well, I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I’m thinking it must be connected to the ground in some way, for it to have affected the surrounding area all the way to the road." Harry tugged Draco’s fingers off his shoulder and slipped them between his own once more. "Also, cellars are dark and shadowy, right? Boggarts love that."

Draco pursed his lips, but couldn’t think of anything to say to refute that, as he gave a reluctant nod and gestured towards the stairs. "I don’t think we’ll be able to banish it," he said, as they began a slow descent down to the bottom floor. "It’ll have gotten too big for that."

"So what should we do?"

"The one in Scotland was eventually trapped in a matchbox, I think."

Harry nodded thoughtfully. "There was a poker, in the living room, do you think you can Transfigure it into a small container?" He hated that his voice shook just thinking about that room again.

"Shouldn’t be a problem. Sure you don’t want to do it yourself?"

"You’ve always been better at that than me."

They’d reached the bottom of the stairs, and Harry stared at the blank wall that had once held the door to the outside world. Every muscle in his body was tensed, waiting for the next horror to jump out of the shadows and attempt to terrify them to death. Except, nothing did, and their slow shuffle across the hall and into the living room was ominously scare-free. They found the poker right where Harry had seen it last, lying innocuously on the floor where Fred had been standing, as though he’d disappeared into mist and left the poker to fall to the ground. Which was probably exactly what had happened. Harry hesitated, then bent down and picked it up, passing it to Draco so that he could change its shape. The room around them was getting brighter now, still too dim for them to see much, but enough that Harry could make out the bulky shapes of the scarce furniture, the recess where another door led out into a different room. That was where he’d run, he remembered, through a few different rooms whose uses he couldn’t discern, before finding himself in the kitchen. That was where they were headed next; the entrance to the cellar had to be there.

"Done," Draco said, handing Harry a small, rectangular object. It was a brass snuff box, a small letter _S_ engraved on the top. Because of course. 

"Let’s go." Still holding hands, they walked through the series of rooms, until the kitchen loomed dark and shadowed in front of them.

"Don’t you think it’s weird that we haven’t run into anything down here?" Draco asked.

"No," Harry replied, suppressing a shudder. "I think it wants us to go down there and find it."

"Well, that’s just fantastic," Draco muttered sarcastically.

Harry couldn’t agree more.

Ahead of them, a small door on the opposite wall creaked open.

* * *

"Oh look, it’s a dark cellar," Harry said.

Draco stood behind him, waiting for that good old Gryffindor courage to kick in and lead the way down. He’d found it irritating when they were at school, everybody always talking about how _brave_ Harry Potter was, how _courageous,_ how _heroic._ Now that they were partners, he thought it worked quite well for them both; Harry jumped in head first, and Draco came in after and cleared up the mess. Hopefully this one wouldn’t be as messy as the rest of their experience inside the house had predicted.

He poked Harry in the back. "Get a move on. The quicker we get down there, the quicker we can get out of this bloody house."

Harry sent him a look, then pushed his glasses up on his nose. "I hate Boggarts," he stated, then stepped down onto the first stair.

Draco followed quickly on his heels, shining his wand out over the banister as soon as it cleared the ceiling. It didn’t illuminate much; the light met the unnatural blackness as though it was a wall, only letting them see a couple of feet around them at a time. An old top loading dryer came into view, the open lid revealing a rusted metal drum. Then a shelving unit, holding a few tins of paint, screwdrivers and boxes of nails. A dog bed sat near the base of the stairs, the sides ripped and stuffing spilling out across the cement floor. Harry stopped walking once he reached the bottom and waited for Draco to join him.

"Should have known it wouldn’t be one wide open space," he whispered, and Draco looked up, out into the darkness. Shapes slowly came into view as his eyes tried to adjust; shelving units that reached the ceiling, haphazard piles of boxes, old appliances, broken children’s toys. Detritus of lives that had been and gone a long time ago.

"Well, I don’t think it’s going to come to us," he whispered back, and Harry nodded grimly.

Together, they moved further into the room, letting the impenetrable black swallow them whole. Draco wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to be looking for, whether or not the Boggart would be able to make itself into something they feared. He wracked his brain, trying to remember more of the story of the Screaming Bogey of Strathtully, but the bit about the matchbox was all there was.

They rounded the first teetering pile of boxes; moulding baby blankets and clothes spilled out of the topmost one. "I really hope whoever this stuff belongs to just left it here," Draco murmured, eyeing a blanket that might have once been green, with tiny pink elephants stitched along the edges. "Because if they’re still in this cellar somewhere, I am quitting right now."

"Sure," Harry replied, a bit of an edge to his voice. "You can live out your days upstairs with the horror of us having sex."

Draco frowned and opened his mouth, but couldn’t think of anything to say. He closed it again and shook his head; no doubt Harry would force him to have that conversation at some point, but during a hunt for a gigantic Boggart really wasn’t the time. Hopefully, he’d have time to come up with a reasonable explanation before Harry could force the issue.

A dull thunk came from the back corner of the room, like an arm brushing against something metal and hollow. Harry whipped his wand around, but still there was nothing to see but more blackness. They shuffled onwards, past some shelves filled with tools and paint brushes. An old radio sat in the corner of one shelf. It looked like the ones Draco had seen in a book about aeroplanes; the dials and knobs made it look almost as though it had a face. 

"It’s in there," Harry said suddenly, and Draco jumped. He followed where Harry was pointing and saw a big metal box, dented and rusted with age. A tall cylinder stretched up out of the top, disappearing into a hole the ceiling.

"What is it?"

"It used to be a boiler," Harry explained. "It heats up the water and sends it to the taps and the radiators. They’re a lot smaller these days."

Draco shook his head. What was wrong with a good fire and a heating charm? Muggles were weird sometimes. "Are you sure it’s in there?"

In answer, the metal door shook a little against the hinges.

"So, shall I open the door and you cast first?" Harry asked. "Or would you rather the other way round?"

"Do you even know what we’re supposed to cast?"

Harry turned to look at him, surprised. "We use Riddiculus, don’t we?"

"That only works for a Boggart in the form of our fears," Draco said, exasperated. He was already on his last nerve; everything about this room felt wrong, a hundred times stronger than the rest of the house. Every step forward was a battle of wills against the forceful need to run as far and as fast as possible in the opposite direction. Not that he could go very far; all the fucking doors kept disappearing. "This one is actually going to be in its original form. I don’t think Riddiculus applies here."

Harry tilted his head to one side, mouth pursed. "We need to make it small enough to fit inside the snuff box, right? So… Reducto?"

"Do you really think it’s going to be that easy?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Can you think of a better plan?"

"No," Draco conceded. He nodded his head at the big metal box. "Fine. You open, I’ll cast."

They took up their positions, Harry crouched over by the box, one hand outstretched and ready to pull open the door, Draco in a duelling stance, wand pointed and spell resting on the back of his tongue. At Draco’s nod, Harry twisted the handle and the door opened with a ear-grating screech.

A feeling was the first thing that oozed out of the container; dread, cold and insidious and threatening to turn Draco’s insides to jelly. He’d never felt fear like it, and for a moment he was back in the Manor, under control of the Dark Lord and that horrible pet snake. Bile rose up in his throat, and only the sight of Harry, crouched on the floor with his head in his hands, stopped Draco from bolting as fast as he could.

The smell came next, putrid and vile, a waft of fetid exhalation. It made his eyes water, blurring the sight of the thing that crawled slowly out of the small, dark hole.

It was gelatinous, utterly shapeless, a heaving mass of jelly that had been left to rot. It’s skin was grey and scaly, bits flaking off to reveal black flesh beneath, slimy looking liquid oozing down its sides. And it was massive, so big Draco couldn’t understand how it had managed to fit inside the boiler at all. The only thing with any colour were the eyes; white and shining with malevolence.

"Oh, yes, that’s definitely a Bogey," Draco muttered, mostly to distract himself from the debilitating fear the thing was emanating out in waves across the room. He knew the fear wasn’t real, any more than the scenes upstairs had been real, but still he had to fight with himself against running away. His raised arm shook, and his voice cracked as he whispered the reducing spell. It wasn’t as strong as it should have been, and Draco could barely make out even the tiniest difference in size. 

"Harry," he gasped out, sucking back in a lungful of air to thick with dread that he could taste it on his tongue. 

Harry mumbled the same spell, falling backwards onto the cement from the effort it took. Draco fell to his knees as he cast again, his whole body shaking with fear. They took turns like that, each taking a second to pull on their last reserves of courage while the other cast, and the Bogey shrank at an infinitesimal pace. It seemed as though hours passed before it looked like any progress was being made, but eventually Draco could make out the top of the boiler door behind the creature. They kept on casting with renewed effort, the end in sight until, finally, the Bogey looked small enough to capture. Draco fumbled in the pocket of his robes and pulled the snuff box out with shaking hands. He opened it and held it out in front of him.

"Now, Harry!"

Harry cast, and the creature, now looking more like a big glob of slime, slowly inched its way across the floor. Draco braced himself and leaned forward to meet it, scooping the thing up and slamming the lid. His fingers began aching where he gripped the box so tightly, but he couldn’t bring himself to ease his hold.

"Well," Harry said, letting himself flop down onto his back. "Glad that’s over."

The box in Draco’s hands rattled suddenly, and he shrieked and dropped it. Harry cried out as it landed on his stomach. When it did nothing more than rattle a bit more, Harry blew out a shaky breath, picked the thing up, and shoved in his pocket. 

"I don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink."

Draco looked around; the cellar was already brighter, light filtering in from the kitchen upstairs. The shelves and abandoned appliances no longer lurked in shadowy corners, now sitting innocuously where they had been left by their previous owners. It looked like an ordinary old basement. The rest of the house probably looked the same by now, including the front door. 

Harry pulled himself to his feet and offered a hand up to Draco, who accepted. They made their way up the stairs and through a house that was now just covered in dust, sunlight filtering in through broken boards on the windows. The front door stood right where it had been before. The meadow of dead flowers outside was still there, but now a soft breeze wafted through the strands, blowing away the husks to make room for new growth. Birds could be heard in the trees surrounding the property.

"So, a drink at the Leaky once we’ve made our report?" Harry asked, breaking the silence between them.

The adrenaline had seeped out of Draco as they trudged back up the road to the Apparition point. He was exhausted, his limbs still trembling and his muscles aching from being held so tense for so long. All he wanted to do was go home to his flat, take a hot shower, and crawl into bed for a week of sleep. What he didn’t want was to have that _talk,_ and he could tell by Harry’s forcefully light tone that it was coming.

"Too tired. Maybe some other time."

"Yeah," Harry said, looking away. "No problem."

Draco stared at his partner’s profile for a moment, then Apparated back to the Ministry.

* * *

It had taken Harry a good couple of hours to work out how to word his report for Pritchard. How did he explain the almost literal pants-wetting terror he’d felt every second he’d been inside that house, without coming across as a complete idiot? Boggarts weren’t exactly unusual occurrences for Aurors; they might not happen every week, but there was a reason they were included in the Auror exams. 

It hadn’t helped that Draco had been sitting right across from him either, staring down at his desk as he tried to make sense of his own experiences that day. The slight furrow of his brow as he erased words and phrases he didn’t like, the agitated twitch of his fingers as he mouthed what he’d written back at himself, the constant tugging of his hair as he remembered what had happened, it all kept Harry from concentrating on his own report, too busy wondering about his partner. Wondering about what he had seen, in that upstairs bedroom Draco had been walled inside.

It hadn’t seemed scary to Harry. It was just them, Harry and Draco, together, having the kind of life he’d been dreaming about ever since the first night they’d slept together. He couldn’t see what was so terrifying about that for Draco, but then, probably Draco wouldn’t find a closet under the stairs quite as horrifying as Harry had, either.

But he couldn’t stop thinking about _why_ that had been Draco’s fear. What was it about that scenario that had Draco covering his ears and cowering against a wall in a desperate attempt to get as far away as possible?

He should leave it alone. If Draco wanted to tell him, he would have. And he didn’t have the right to push, because they weren’t _together,_ not really. No matter how much Harry might wish otherwise. And Draco didn’t want them to be, if that bedroom was any indication.

Draco stood up, slapped his file closed and whisked it through to Pritchard’s office. He gave Harry a tight smile, murmured something about seeing him on Monday, and strode out of the office. Harry stared after him, his own report still half finished.

No, he couldn’t leave it alone. He couldn’t see what he had seen and not find out _why._

He scribbled out a few more lines and sent the file to Pritchard’s office. He’d probably get another lecture on how to make his handwriting legible come Monday morning, but right at that moment he didn’t care. He was just about to leave when he heard his name being called, and he turned back with a snarl.

"Woah, mate," Ron said, heading over to him from his own cubicle. "What’s got your wand in a knot?"

Harry sighed, swallowing back his frustration. "Sorry, Ron. I’ve just… I’ve got somewhere I need to be. I’ll talk to you later, yeah?"

"Okay. Just wanted to tell you, me and Dean decided on 8 o'clock."

"What?"

Ron rolled his eyes. "Seamus’s birthday. 8 o’clock, Golden Gryphon. Don’t be late, okay? Dean’s planned some kind of surprise, and he wants us all there for it."

"I…" Harry blew out a breath and winced. "I don’t think I’m gonna make it tonight. Just… Can you tell Seamus I’m sorry? And that I’ll make it up to him at the pick up game on Sunday?"

"Mate." Ron frowned at him, concern in his eyes. "What is going on with you? Whatever it is, you know you can talk to me, right? I’m starting to worry about you."

Harry let out a soft snort. "You mean Hermione’s worried about me."

"Well, yeah, but that’s pretty much a constant state for her. But you’re freaking me out too. You’ve sort of been in your own little world recently." He looked uncomfortable for a second, before sighing and continuing on. "Is it Malfoy?"

Harry looked up at his best friend, startled. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, come on, Harry, you’re my best mate. D’you really think I don’t know when you’ve got the hots for someone?"

"What? I don’t… That’s not even…" Harry blustered, unable to finish a sentence. He thought he’d been so careful keeping his feelings under wraps. From everyone. Oh, God, what if _that_ was why Draco…

"It’s okay, you know," Ron went on. "I mean, he’ll always be ferrety git to me, but if he makes you happy, it’s not like I’m gonna stand in the way of that or anything." He patted Harry on the shoulder, shaking him a little. "You _can_ talk to me about this stuff."

Harry managed a slightly trembling smile, and nodded. "I know. I just… I have some stuff to figure out on my own first, yeah. Tell Seamus I owe him one, okay?"

"Yeah, ‘course. Go do whatever you have to do."

"Cheers, mate. See you later."

Harry made his way quickly down to the Floos, calling out his own address and tumbling into the kitchen of his little flat. He’d been sitting in his own cooling sweat for hours, and he needed a long, hot shower and a few minutes to think about what he was going to say to Draco.

Because he couldn’t just leave it. They might only be work partners who occasionally had drunken sex - fantastic, brilliant, awesome sex that blew Harry’s mind each and every time - but Harry had to know. Had to know what about the idea of them together terrified Draco so much, why he wasn’t interested in anything more. 

And then once he knew, he could move on.

* * *

Draco thought that writing up his report might possibly have been the worst thing he had gone through all day. It was bad enough living through it once, why must the department force them to go through it all again a second time? It had taken a lot of descriptive gymnastics to be able to write something that told the truth without revealing too much. But then, that was one of the things Slytherins were best known for, and he was almost proud of himself for getting through it in record time, leaving Harry still sitting at his desk, staring into space. He still wasn’t sure what Harry had experienced in the house while they’d been separated. During their verbal report with Pritchard, Harry had mumbled something about a closet, before going bright red and looking down at his trainers.

He’d finished up as quickly as possible and practically run out of the Auror department, desperate to get home and get a little bit of distance from his partner. He knew that expression Harry had been wearing, had seen it all through school and beyond, and he knew what it meant. Something was bothering Harry, and he couldn’t rest until he figured it out. And Draco knew exactly what that something was.

He’d gone home and got directly into the shower, turning the spray as hot and as hard as it would go, letting the stinging drops of water wash away the horrors of the day. He closed his eyes and turned his face up, willing the memories of that damn house to wash down the drain along with the dirt and sweat and grime.

He didn’t get out until the water threatened to turn cold, and he dressed himself in an old t shirt and his one pair of sweatpants, ready to curl up in his armchair with a hot cup of tea and a book.

Except Harry was already sitting there.

His hair was wet, sitting up in clumps on the top of his head and confirming Draco’s suspicions that he never bothered to brush it. He wore a pair of old jeans with rips in the knees, and a red hand-knitted jumper with the letter H emblazoned in yellow on the front. His hands were in his lap, fingers twisting together over and over, one knee bouncing up and down in agitation.

"We need to talk," he said shortly, as Draco stopped dead in the living room doorway.

"How did you get in here?" Draco asked indignantly. "My Floo has an alarm system."

"You gave me the code last week. Draco, we need to-"

"What was it about _see you Monday_ that you didn’t understand, Potter?" Draco interrupted. He was tired and angry and he _did not want to have this conversation._

"Draco please, I need to know-"

"No, you don’t!" Draco yelled, his voice echoing in the bare room. 

He hadn’t bothered doing much to his entire flat, knowing it wouldn’t be long before he’d have to give in to the duty to his family name. Renovate the Manor, find himself a suitable wife, start popping out heirs. He was 26, he was already far older than anyone else in his family tree. He should have at least one child by now, and he was letting them all down, he knew. He could see it in his father’s eyes on his yearly visit, the disappointment getting deeper every time he showed up without news of his impending fatherhood. So the walls were bare, the sofa and armchairs functional rather than stylish; the only thing on the mantelpiece was the pot of Floo powder. The rest of his flat was exactly the same. It encouraged visitors not to linger. It encouraged the same for himself.

He took a breath and drew himself up to his full height, glaring down at Harry. "You don’t need to know anything. We work together, that’s all."

Harry winced, a pained expression in his eyes, but he didn’t move from the chair. "I don’t believe that. I can’t."

Draco crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. "Those times when we… It was a mistake, nothing more. I’m sorry if you thought otherwise."

"I didn’t think otherwise," Harry said softly. He directed his gaze at the fire, still burning after his entrance to the flat. "I hoped, but I didn’t… Not until today, anyway." He turned his head to face Draco again, determination flashing behind his glasses. "We’re not just partners, Draco, not if _that’s_ something that the Bogey picked on to use against you. It means something to you, _I_ mean something to you, so I have to know." He stood up, swallowed hard, and took a couple of steps closer. "What is it about _that,_ that scares you so much? Was it the living together thing?"

"I don’t want to talk about this." Draco turned sharply on his heel, intending to go into the kitchen and ignore Harry until he went away. "We’re not talking about this."

Harry took another step, then stopped, hands going to his hair. "Was it… Was it me topping? Are you scared of that?"

Draco stared at him.

"Because you, you know I’d never force you to do that with me, right? We could keep doing it the other way round forever, if that’s what you wanted."

"You think I’m afraid of _bottoming?"_ Draco scrunched up his face, incredulous.

Harry threw his hands up in the air. "Well, I don’t know! It could have been all the cushions on the bed, or the way the furniture was placed, or the fact that there were pictures of you at the Weasley’s house, or-"

"Wow, you really think a lot of me, don’t you?" Draco said, sneering. "You think I give a shit about any of that?"

"No! But I don’t know what else to think! Which is why I need you to tell me."

"Let’s get some things straight right now, then." Draco strode up to Harry and poked him in the chest, hard. "I don’t care about cushions, or feng shui, and I couldn’t care less about photographic evidence of me spending time at the Weasley’s hovel-"

"It’s not a hovel!"

"- And, I am _not_ scared of bottoming, either." Draco shrugged, feeling his cheeks go pink. "In fact, most times I prefer it."

"Oh." Harry was blushing too, now, his eyes drifting from Draco’s face to roam down his body. "So, how come we’ve only ever..?"

"I like the sounds you make," Draco said simply.

"Oh," Harry said again. 

Draco looked up, having been staring at Harry’s shoulder since he made his confession. Harry’s eyes were blazing now, that intense expression that had had Draco’s mouth watering and his heart beating faster for as long as he’d understood what arousal was. Those green eyes were dark with want, Harry’s mouth firm and shoulders pulled straight, that determined, almost heroic stance that he took whenever he was intent on doing something he felt was important.

"I’d like to hear what sounds you make," Harry said quietly, confidence laced with just a touch of uncertainty, a little glimpse of vulnerability that usually had Draco hard and leaking and ready to bend Harry over the nearest surface and _take_ him.

But not this time.

They crashed together, as they always did, Firewhisky running through their veins and making them bolder, louder, desperate and unafraid to show it. Draco’s knees hit the arm of the sofa before he realised he was being moved, too intent on sucking Harry’s tongue into his mouth to understand he was now the one being shoved towards the nearest horizontal surface. Harry pushed him until his back met the cushions, following him down and kneeling between his legs. Draco moaned into Harry’s mouth and braced one foot against the floor to push his hips up, seeking friction against his aching groin. Harry answered eagerly, hips shoving back with just the right amount of force. It felt so good. Too good.

"Clothes. Off," Draco mumbled, head thrown back to give Harry access to his throat. "Now."

"Right, right." Harry flicked a hand out, and their clothes melted away, leaving nothing but skin on heated skin. Draco felt his cock jump and spurt a little; the times before he’d been too drunk to realise that Harry did that little trick _wandlessly._

"You have to… Inside me… Before…"

Harry nodded, face pressed into the crook of Draco’s neck, hands roaming down his sides and digging bruises into his hips. Another flick of his hand, and then slick fingers were sliding round Draco’s cock, over his balls and down to his hole. He tapped against it with two fingers, sliding the conjured oil around, then gently pushed a single one inside to the first knuckle.

Draco’s leg kicked out in frustration. "I said I wasn’t scared, Potter. Now get. In. Me."

"If you say so," Harry replied. He removed his finger and returned with two, shoving all the way in and straight back out again. He found Draco’s prostate on the third pass, and Draco shouted and arched his back, legs falling open as wide as the constrictions of the sofa would let them go.

Before he could find the breath to demand more, fingers were replaced with the blunt head of Harry’s hard, thick cock, pressing just at the entrance. Then he stopped, muscles tensed and arms shaking where they were braced to either side of Draco’s head, and shot a questioning look down.

Too on edge to find the words, Draco answered instead by reaching down and grabbing Harry’s arse with both hands, forcing him inside. They both let out a gasp, muscles locking with the beautiful shock for an extended moment. Harry stared down at Draco, mouth open and eyes wide, and then he slowly ground his hips. 

Draco moaned and pulled Harry down for a deep, sloppy kiss, knees drawing up to Harry’s ribs, implicitly ceding control. Harry smiled against his lips, and started to thrust. 

He might not be afraid of bottoming, and he’d told Harry the truth; most times he did prefer it. But it had been a while, and he’d forgotten just how _good_ it could be. It was electrifying, stupefying, and with the right person it could take over every sense until he couldn’t imagine doing anything other than exactly _this_ for eternity.

And Merlin, was Harry the right person.

His hips moved so fluidly, like it was a dance and only he knew all the right steps. One hand anchored Draco’s thigh, holding him so tightly that he felt every thrust as though it was the first one. His other hand moved across the rest of Draco’s body, unerringly finding each erogenous zone as though he was made just for this; his nipples, clavicle, hip bone, behind his ear, thumb under his chin and pushing his head back - all the things that heightened Draco’s pleasure the most. He was so caught up in _Harry,_ his mouth and his hands and his cock moving inside him, that his orgasm rose up with barely a thought. He choked on a breath in surprise as the wave washed over him, thighs shaking and back arching, fingers gripping Harry’s shoulders so hard they began to hurt.

A broken moan slipped over Harry’s lips as Draco’s come coated their bellies, and his hips stuttered. He shoved in once, twice, a third time, and Draco felt wet warmth spill inside him as he held on to Harry’s taut, sweat-slicked back. Then he slumped down, head coming to rest once more in the curve of Draco’s neck.

They breathed together for a long while, Harry softening slowly inside of him, until Draco’s legs began to ache and the skin of his stomach began to pull unpleasantly. He slapped Harry’s flank, and they shuffled around on the sofa until Harry’s head was resting comfortably on Draco’s shoulder, their legs tangled together.

"You still haven’t told me," Harry murmured into Draco’s collarbone.

Draco’s brain was still a little fuzzy around the edges. "What?"

Harry pushed himself up onto one elbow, looking down at Draco with a serious expression on his face. "What is it that you’re so scared of?"

Draco didn’t want to talk about this. He _never_ wanted to talk about this, but Harry had just given him the fuck of his life, and his limbs were heavy and his brain wasn’t working properly, and all his defences were down.

"Letting my family down," he whispered, eyes resolutely on the ceiling. "This can’t be my life, okay? I have a duty to uphold, and I can’t disappoint them again." He shook his head. "You wouldn’t understand." He felt Harry’s wince, and immediately felt bad.

"Probably not," Harry said quietly. "I didn’t know either of your parents that well, and I’ll admit what I _do_ know, I didn’t like very much. But I do know this." He pushed himself up further, until he was sitting back against the arm of the sofa. "I know that during that last day of the war, they weren’t interested in whether or not you were doing what they wanted. They only wanted to know that you were safe. That’s all they cared about."

Draco dipped his chin, so he could see in his eyes that Harry was telling the truth.

Harry shrugged. "I think that they were awful parents. But I also think that they were parents who love you, and I think that they love you enough to want you to be happy. Especially now, after everything that’s happened, everything that you’ve done since."

Draco shook his head again. "I think I know what my parents want for me better than you do."

"Maybe so." Harry sighed, then reached out for Draco’s hand, pulling him up into his arms. "But look, I’m not asking for us to get married. I just want us to be something _real._ Maybe go on a date or two, see where it leads."

Draco tilted his head, thinking. "A date?"

Harry nodded. "Tomorrow. I’ll take you to dinner."

"Fine." Draco pursed his lips. "But it had better not be at the Leaky; that place has mould growing on the tables."

Harry smiled, and brought him in for a slow, deep kiss. "Don’t worry," he said against Draco’s lips. "I know you better than that."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! You can show your appreciation for the author in a comment here or on [livejournal](https://hd-erised.livejournal.com/99070.html). ♥
> 
> This story is part of an on-going anonymous fest hosted at hd_erised@livejournal.com. The author will be revealed January 8th.


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